07 February 2007

Perhaps I’m misreading the situation, but the more I read about the Republican shut-down of the Congressional vote against Bush’s escalation of the war yesterday, the more it sounds like Orwellian NewSpeak: “Support the troops! Send more of them to their deaths!”

I’m getting so very tired of this.

Pardon me, but it seems to me that Americans can best support their sons and daughters in uniform by bringing them home, preferably alive, in one piece and with their minds intact from the illegal war of choice started by Bush and his Republican enablers, not by sending yet more of them into the inferno.

But in the surreal world of the Bush cult, black is white, up is down, war is peace, and good is bad.

Joe Lieberman today said that he thought there should be a “war on terror tax” to help pay for that sham to make up for the huge budget shortfalls facing America this year and for many, many years to come. Aw, come on, Joe. You guys have been enjoying the spoils of the Bush tax cuts for the rich for six years now while the rest of us live paycheck to paycheck. Now you’re advocating taxing us to pay for the horror your lies created in Iraq?

Huh-uh, bub. You’ve already been getting a good portion of my income for years now – and squandering it. The war on terror is a sham. It was a sham from the start. How dare you stand up there in front of the Senate and suggest that now, after six bloody years of Republican incompetence, hubris, pork-barrel greed and warmongering, that average Americans haven’t been asked to sacrifice enough to you. More than 3,000 dead American soldiers isn’t good enough for you? More that $364 billion in national treasure, including my taxes, being tossed into the sucking black hole you crazy neocons created in Iraq isn't enough?

Holy hell. And you claim to be a Democrat? Shame on you, Lieberman.

Your ugly tax isn’t about supporting a war to protect America – it's about paying for a massive, criminal mistake that has only hurt and wounded America, both here at home and in the eyes of the world.

Where are the adults in this country?

Update: My buddy Patrick of Blowing Shit Up With Gas points out that Lieberman is an Independent now, which is true. After he lost the Democratic primary race for his senate seat in Connecticut to Ned Lamont, Lieberman abandoned the Democratic Party, became an Independent, and won the state's general election in Nov. 2006. He now caucuses with the Democrats and until recently, coyly called himself an "Independent Democrat." But Lieberman is an unabashed warmonger, a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, on kissy-face terms with President Bush and hasn't ruled out switching over to the Republican Party if it looks more politically expedient to him. Like his shadow masters in the Republican party, he's not listening to his constituency or the American people, and I still think he ought to be ashamed of himself. Not that he will.With friends like Sen. Joe Lieberman, who needs enemies?

Posted by
Wren

5 comments:

chautauqua
said...

Enjoyed your essay. You probably meant to say 364 billion. I doubt if there's enough paper on earth to print 364 trillion dollars unless they start printing googol bucks or something. (A googol is ten to the 100th power). Hmm, come to think of it, that's waaaay more than trillion.

It's hard to watch our government action these days. I never feel represented, and mostly I wind up screaming at the TV. I'm not sure our country is recoverable. Power has been handed to the big players. We're just the folks who toil and labor and pay those taxes (that the repubs say they hate) that line the pockets of the wealthy. What we have become is thing so unlike what we started out to be.